Shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting DEMONS!

Smelly bear, smelly bear, what have they been feeding you?
Beer and bacon and BBQ beans, that’s what a big butted bear is made of.

Surprise, surprise, I have been playing a little Diablo 3 this week.

I don’t know that my experiences are going to be all that interesting, but my approach to the game has been to ignore it and all related discussions completely until release.

I wouldn’t say I’ve taken pleasure in ignoring the latest details MMO Champion would release during Beta, or in passing by the fevered, frenzied arguments about it’s features that popped up like shrooms all over the blogosphere.

Well, yeah, I guess I would.

I was playing World of Warcraft, and while it’s nice to see what is intended in a beta for a game I’m actively playing, like WoW, I really couldn’t get into following all the details of a game that was unplayable.

Basically, I ask this of a company – if you’re creating a game, give me a video pimping your art design and music to entice my imagination, then give me some gameplay videos showing me what it’s like to actually get embedded into it. That’s it, I’ll take it from there. The more detail you tell me, the less left to my imagination. Give me a good view of the gameplay, I’ll see all I need for a snap judgment.

I played Diablo, Diablo II, and the expansions. I’ve got fond memories of them all, but the gameplay… they are, at their hearts, button mashing hack and slash dungeon crawlers, and there was nothing wrong with that at all. But the tastiest bits of those dungeon crawlers was exploring the world, the lore, and the specifics of the gameplay as it unfolded through the levels, so why would I want to spoil the mysterious bits with spoilers before I even crack the can?

Plus… one of the things I loved about my previous Diablo experiences was how rock-solid polished they were. Shit worked, no bugs. Why spoil by trying them when they’re all buggy?

I wanted to walk into the new game just like I did the old ones, to get immersed in a POLISHED game experience and enjoy my ignorance.

The best reason I could think of to follow the development would be to see if I felt enticed enough to buy it for $60, so as soon as they announced you got the game for free with an Annual Pass in WoW, well, I stopped following the news. Purchase was a done deal, I’ll play it when I get it, and see what it’s like then.

Fast forward to launch week, my friends. Ooh, new game, cool, time to see what all the hype was about. I hope it doesn’t suck!

I’ve been so successful at remaining spoiler free (that sounds better than ignorant, doesn’t it?) that I had to no shit look up how many classes there were and watch the “What the heck does this class do” videos on MMO Champion just to get some idea of which one I might try first.

I didn’t have even the most basic awareness of what was going to happen when I fired it up. Except, like, you know.

Demons and shit.

I watched the Barbarian video, the Demon Hunter and the Monk. I didn’t watch the Witch Doctor because the gameplay description was all “lol pets lol”, and I didn’t watch the Wizard because, well, squishy was my first impression, and squishy is for after you play around with it.

A heavy plate wearing class, a damage sponge, that is just the thing for a training wheels experience.

I didn’t think I’d start with a Barbarian though, because, well, it looked identical to a WoW Warrior, been there done that, I deal with rage issues enough as it is. If I want to deal with rage, I can just catch up on Twitter, plenty of rage to be found there.

I didn’t think I wanted to start with a Demon Hunter because, and this is the only real reason, I didn’t fancy micro-managing traps. Demon Hunter went on my mental “try when I’m bored with my first character, twin crossbows look sweet” list.

So I watched the Monk video, and I thought it looked pretty cool. It is about damn time someone decided that what the world lacked was Hungarian Ninjas, and I for one welcome our new Hungarian Ninja lightning-fisted overlords.

Awesome voice acting on the accents. I started off with a male one, booted through the startup intro and then thought, “Holy crap, this guy is so awesome, what does a female Hungarian Ninja sound like, OMIGOD RUN GO SEE GO SEEEEE”

I do not regret my decision. Sunshatter the female Hungarian Ninja is a lot of fun.

In getting started, the Monk certainly felt powerful, I kicked some skeleton ass. It was pretty cool. Nice effects, a melee class with lots of “get to the bad guy fast” abilities, very nice.

The more things change, though, the more they feel the same.

The first thing that really got into my head like Deja-Diablo-Vue was how like Diablo II the gear situation felt.

One of the things I carried forward from Diablo II was my irritation with their loot system.

Drops were always random, and it was difficult to know what stats you wanted, and if you did know exactly what was optimal, good luck ever finding it.

I only ever played Diablo II single player, and I remember feeling really irritated that they couldn’t have drops that were a little more… focused towards being useful, but in different ways.

At the time, I figured it was so that, when playing Diablo II in a group for years, the drop of an actually USEFUL piece of gear would be cause for celebration, acrimonious arguments, and furious dissention. All the stuff that helps bond a group.

So, yeah, when I saw the return of some of the silly stat combinations, it brought me right back.

The reality of Diablo III is better, much better, the new game does not bear any real resemblance to how bad Diablo II gear drop stats were, but the feel is there on each wtf drop.

See, the reason it’s all good is, all that crap gear has a point! You can destroy it for component parts without regret. Plus, and this is amazing, as far as I can see there is NO soulbinding, so you can equip a drop, use it as long as you’d like, and then trade it to someone else.

Oh yeah, did I mention my shock at that change before? There is an Auction House, and you don’t have to decide between equipping an awesome item to level with or selling it. You can do both!

Level with that awesome item, then when you get an upgrade, turn around and break it up into forging mats, or sell it on the AH to someone else. Or stick it in your shared stash for an alt to use someday.

That… that is pretty amazing to me. It seems almost TOO useful, too considerate to players, to be a Blizzard game design decision.

Then again, the Black Market Auction House is coming soon, as well as account-wide shared mounts, and those are a bit of a shocker too. I thought Blizzard wanted us to run things a bazillion times hoping for that rare drop, and then suffer the anguish of the “soulbound on the wrong character that ran it once to help a friend” tragedy.

Your tears nourish the black soul of Blizzard developers, who, or so I’ve heard, are all retired Special Forces E&E Trainer cadre who miss torturing willing participants in a myriad of perfectly legal ways.

My amazement of the transferrable loot system was overshadowed by my annoyance at how confused I feel at Blizzard’s itemization.

Understand, I could answer all of these questions with a 30 second web search. That’s not the point. The point is to have the joy of discovery all on my own, and that joy has to be balanced by my inevitable irritation when I’m ignorant, and can’t figure out a solution quickly.

As much else that I love, I continue to feel confused with armor and weapons.

For example… are there actual armor types?

I look at an item description, and it seems sometimes it says an item is cloth, other times leather, but many other times there is no actual ‘armor class’ or type listed, just an armor value.

Stats are fairly obvious in association, but can my Wizard wear the same types of armor as my Barbarian? There are class-specific items with a class name in some pieces, but in others, it seems pretty shaky.

It’s not quite as obvious as the system that I, as a WoW player, am used to. Such as “You are a Mage, you wear Cloth. Suck it up, silk-boy.” Or “You are a Druid, you can wear Cloth or Leather armor, you have a level 60 Skill that says if you wear all Leather you get stat bonuses so you are intended to wear leather whenever possible, if you don’t like it go stick a feather in your butt and pop flight form, bird-brain.”

Not a big issue, just… ah, the feel of Diablo II in the air. Refreshing!

When I’d played my Monk for a while, I decided I wanted to try a ranged class. I was having fun, but I was curious if a Wizard would feel noticeably squishier, and if so, would that be more challenging? The Monk was feeling a bit too easy mode.

I created a Wizard. A male Wizard. I refrained from making the obvious emo jokes when I saw his default pose, I just named him Unbearable, and really, when you look at his pose, why wouldn’t you? I look at him and I know *I* want to smack that smug know-it-all smirk off his face.

Here is the funny thing.

Because my monk was a melee combatant, I worked hard to get weapon upgrades. More powerful paired Vampiric daggers means more stabby-stab damage, right? Sorta?

But the Wizard is a spell-casting inferno of magical destruction. I am throwing lightning bolts and orbs of arcane might at the bad guys, all doing with the blowing up thing.

What does the DPS of a sword have to do with the damage my fireball does?

Well, it doesn’t, or so I reason out, and off I went through most of the first act ignoring my weapon unless a Wand dropped, since Wands might affect my Magic Missile.

I was having a pretty hard time towards the end, fighting the waves of bad guys in the Cathedral leading up to the Skeleton King. I was getting swamped, and as good as Arcane Orb is, it was taking every bit of skillful use of Frost Nova and that Arcane Explosion thingie AoE and running and gunning to stay alive.

Then, I decided to toss a 14.5 DPS flaming spear into my weapon slot. Just cause, you know. Flaming javelin mages are so the thing, right?

It turns out, and this was a hell of a surprise, it turns out that the higher the DPS rating on my melee weapon, the more powerful my magical spells are.

So… my weapon is a stat stick that has no intuitive link with my magical power, but does anyway. Fair enough, lesson learned, time to toast some Horny Tauren… err, goatmens.

It’s been lots of fun, dungeon crawling has never been more interesting. Learning to hold down the shift button whenever I want to blow stuff up at range (it keeps me from moving when I click), learning that I can click on my Templar companion’s portrait and train his skills and GIVE HIM gear to make him more powerful, there are all sorts of fun little discoveries so far.

And I’ll be honest with you, the fact that I am trying, screwing it up, getting myself in stupid situations and then discovering my error later? That is actually a large part of the fun.

There is something inherently perverse in how I’m playing the game. The moments that stand out for me as the best are the ones where I go “Oh shit! THAT’S what I was supposed to do! Well, duh.”

And yet… it’s been good.

I’ve been thinking, I’m having so much fun and being delighted by wonder and getting surprised by my mistakes and working through them, that I’m thinking I ought to try working ignorance into the rest of my day to day activities.

I’m thinking, from now on, when I’m driving I might want to stop turning my head around to see what is behind me and to the sides before I make a lane change. I think going to that extra effort to actually SEE the blind spots and make sure they’re clear before I change lanes is keeping me from having a certain taste of mystery, of wonder in my life. I think I should cut back on being informed, no turn signals either (why should I prevent other drivers from enjoying their own moment of enjoyable surprise learning experiences) and just glance in the side mirror and pop over in the same movement.

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

Don’t worry though, I know I’m not the first one to think of this as a way to add a certain flair and excitement to my day. Hell, from what I can see on the road, I’m apparently the last one to realize how fun it must be.

Here’s hoping that you and yours are having a great time in whatever game you may be playing, and I’ll leave you with this tagline:

“Ignorance – It’s not just a playstyle choice, it’s a LIFESTYLE choice.”

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15 thoughts on “Shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting DEMONS!”

The great thing about diablo 3 in my opinion is that the talents and item specialization are often really a matter of choice.
You said you could do a 5 min search of the Internet and find what’s the best itemizations (and by extension talents).
I’m playing a barbarian wielding a 2h. I’ve found that on normal mode my spec is working great. I do a lot of damage with whirlwind, cleave, and earthquake and self healing on aoe packs with revenge. I tried to look up an “optimal” spec for 2H barbarian and almost everyone has a different take on it. Now add to that DW 1H barbs and shield barbs and the combinations are almost endless. You might not enjoy how I’ve learned to play the Barbarian and I might not enjoy how you might play it. But at least for normal we can both play. I’ve heard that hell and inferno are focused more on defensive stats and I’ll see when I get there and I’m sure I will have to learn some other spells. But for now, I don’t think there is a “best” spec or best itemization. Put on gear that has your main stat (str dex or int) and pay attention to that “damage” stat on your character screen. Pop out the side bar and check your crit and xp bonus per kill and enjoy it!

I’m shield barb. Had a shield barb in D2 – you pretty much had to, if you wanted to come close to non-sucktastic resistances in Hell difficulty – and the instinct stuck with me. Plus, in my imagination, it’s my same old barb! Just older, and maybe he took a chunk of world stone to the head, which explains the level one-ness. Have found about zero reason to take him off cleave, especially with the “things explode when they die” rune. Just started Act 2 though. Maybe things will require more finesse. Lol.

I do wish they hadn’t borrowed quite so much of Act 1 from the first game. I didn’t think there was necessarily that much narrative reason for it. Also, wtb a rogue retainer instead of the scoundrel, though they get an A+ for the running dialog.

I was playing the other night, chatting to my nephew in-game, when my finger got tired of clicking and … the attacks started happening *while I held the mouse button down*… I told my nephew of this discovery & he called me a newb.
(I’m still enjoying the game, though) ;)

OMG, I know, right? I’m now level 18 on my Wizard and just finished Act I, and I JUST realized I can hold down shioft and the left button to chain cast my lightning blasts, while tapping right mouse in addition to toss of occasional arcane orbs.

I miss the black orbs, thought. My new weapon or glyph or whatever makes my orbs red, when they were black it looked like I was firing black holes at the bad guys. That was the best ever.

Hehe, the melee DPS increasing your magical damage is a weird one eh?
Then try to figure out the relation between your prime stat (like dex or int) and your damage. And once you have that one under control, try a +damage ring. It completely messes up what you thought to have figured out.
And then on the follower it’s completely the other way around?

The stats are not really intuitive so far… Then again, I still remember ignoring hitrating far into my raids in WoW… Some things take time to grasp I guess…

It’s a great game so far, but it surely has some strange things going on for a starting player :)

Hilarious article. I was playing D3 multiplayer on normal mode and I was the highest level demon hunter and the other demon hunter asked me what the best stats and spec was. I just told him go with what is fun its just normal mode.

For my casters, I remap “shift” to “W”
For my melees, I remap “move” to “W”

For both, I remap “alt” to “E”

Just puts everything in convenient spots – and sometimes you just can’t move through a crowd without remembering to click on the far side of the screen… mapping the Move (which initially is only set to a mouse button) key has saved me from mob death on numerous occasions.

Also – for maximum customization, select ‘Elective Mode’ under Gameplay options to allow you to select which skills you want on your bar and mouse buttons. Sometimes it’s advantageous to have two different Primary abilities… Barbarian gets amazing when you have both Cleave and Frenzy available… speed up your attacks to 5 stacks of frenzy and then cleave like mad. You do sacrifice an ability, as you only get 6 slots… but some, like your 120 second cool down ‘boss fight’ power is a good candidate – and you can easily swap abilities around for bosses – maybe not use a secondary or something.

It’s been fun – beat Normal with my barbi last night… now I’m torn; do I continue through Nightmare or level up someone else. Options options :)

Heh… yes bear, apperently you are the last into figure out the joys of reckless driving in the twin cities… for the record, you twin cities people are CRAZY drivers

As for D3, I’ve fallen in love with the witch doctor… and while yes, he has pets, his okay style is mire direct, using such great weapons as jars filled with spiders, and flaming hellish bat sprays… also zombies… how can you go wrong with zombies!?!?

Also, you’re suppose to do your business in the woods… not on a clean blog page… and thanks for getting me craving BBQ again.

Yes, Diablo III sorcerers are a very fun OMGWTFBBQ if you get a high DPS weapon. :-) Even better, get one with a socket and put in the best ruby you can afford. Rubies in weapons increase the base weapon damage, which is a very good thing! I spent quite a while using Shock Pulse with the Explosive Bolts rune not because it was a particularly good spell but because the resulting animation of exploding demons flying through the air was too much fun to pass up. Finished normal, happily starting nightmare!